Read the full story on the Bay of Plenty Times website
Sixteen-year-old Tenmark Nielsen dreamed of playing rugby league in Australia to make money to buy a bigger house for his 12-strong family.
Instead he faces a multitude of operations after setting himself on fire in his family's crowded four-bedroom Tauranga home a fortnight ago.
His father, Kaisa Nielsen, told the Bay of Plenty Times his son had been taken off a ventilator but would remain in hospital for about six months. He is in the burns ward at Auckland's Middlemore Hospital, and has had six operations already. He needs at least seven more.
"He wanted to go to Australia and play rugby league and get money to buy a bigger house for all of us," Mr Nielsen told the newspaper.
"I said for him not to go because I wanted him to finish school. He was upset with me. It's very sad ... I'm not all right."
Tenmark's nine siblings all woke the night their brother, who was in the Tenmark was in the Tauranga Boys' College's first XV, set himself alight. They were struggling to cope, Mr Nielsen said.
The Tauranga Assembly of God pastor burned his leg covering his son with his body to douse the flames.
- NZPA
